Summer in the City (Film)
- Hanns Hisser: Hans
- Edda Köchl: Edda
- Libgart Black: Libgart
- Marie Bardischewski: Marie
Summer in the City is a film by Wim Wenders from the year 1970. It is Wenders' first feature film length. The main role is played by Hanns Hisser. The film is subtitled Dedicated to The Kinks.
Action
The protagonist Hans is released from prison. He walks aimlessly through seedy streets of Munich until he is forced to flee to a friend's to Berlin because his former gang is after him. Finally, he also has to leave Berlin and travels to Amsterdam.
Importance
The film was produced as Wenders' graduate thesis at the University of Television and Film Munich, where he studied from 1967 to 1970. It was shot in black and white on 16 mm. Camera man was, as well as in numerous later Wenders films, Robby Müller. The film already contains recurring themes from Wenders' later films: the haphazard search, running away from invisible demons and the persistent journey to an uncertain destination, in this case, the protagonist Hans, who was released from prison and on the run from his former gang is. In Summer in the City Wenders also used a setting in which the view from an airplane is shown on the wing for the first time. Similar images can be found in many of his later films.
Apart from festivals - - In the cinema, the film was not shown because Wenders to the music used had no rights.
Style
Summer in the City is one of the bleakest films of Wenders. Wenders himself described it as a film about depression, not as a depressive film.
An important element of the film is the music. The soundtrack includes tracks by The Lovin ' Spoonful, The Kinks, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, The Troggs and Gustav Mahler. As regards content, the pieces of music used in contrast to the cold atmosphere of the images of the film.
A special feature is that all languages spoken by Hans phrases from the movie to be repeated again from the off. This design element was not originally planned, but is of poor intelligibility of the original sound owed.
Title
The film's title refers, according to Wenders on the same song that was used in the film. Another influence may have been a picture of Edward Hopper. Wenders adored both The Lovin ' Spoonful, and Hopper, to whom he was referring to in several of his films.